There are a TON of options in Word that make word-processing so much easier. You may have been using Microsoft Word for a long time, but are probably still going the long way round to get certain things done.
Here we reveal some really simple tips that should greatly speed up your use of the world's most popular word-processing package.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Get rid of that annoying horizontal line in Word

Have you had this happen? It especially likes to rear its irritating head in other people's documents that you receive.

I am talking about a mysterious horizontal line that appears in the middle of your Word document, like I had recently in a document I was working on. In this case, I had scanned the page in, and the optical character recognition (OCR) program had put it in there itself.

It's not a regular line, drawn with the graphic tools, you can't find any option for it in the menus, right-clicking on it does nothing, and when you pass the mouse over, it merely gives you the slider pointer icon, used to indicate that you can move it up and down.

Well, no need to tear your hair out! This line is actually... Wait for it...! A border! Don't ask me how it got there, but all you need to do is highlight the section around the line (just left mouse, and pull a nice big block round the area, provided there are no tables nearby where you want to preserve a border). Then just go up to the border-line selection icon in the toolbar and choose the one that clears all borders:

Hey presto (I say that a lot round here!), that pesky line should disappear! If it doesn't then, well, blame aliens!

Your tip works! When I did it, the horizontal line just moved up the selected block, so I selected the block immediately above the horizontal line, and then it worked. No more magically inserted & annoying horizontal lines!

I'm glad this post is still helping people - this can only mean that the annoying horizontal line is alive and well!

I just have to add that I caught it in the act today! I realised one way that it can appear. If in Word you type a line of dashes, "--------" (not sure how exactly many there have to be), the autoformat function will turn this into the dreaded annoying horizontal line when you press return!

I can just imagine somebody innocently typing dashes, like I did, and then having NO IDEA how to get rid of that line afterwards, since it doesn't appear to be editable in any way.

Oh the wrath Microsoft Word inspires. You should see when you get into some advanced stuff in Word, like using hidden text extensively, protected text etc. You get some amazing crashes, you wouldn't believe...

But I think the main problem with these "bugs" is they're not really bugs, Word is doing what it's supposed to - the problem is that us average users cannot possibly fathom what it has done. Once you know, it's simple, but until then...

_Selecting_ the line and then "no border" didn't work for me. But putting the cursor just before (above) the dreaded line, and only then clicking on "no border" worked. Phew! Wasted so much time on this... Long live google, and charitable folks who put tips up :) Thanks!

What a cancer is right. I had to highlight the whole 100 page document, b/c when i just highlighted one section the dreaded line reappeared in another section. Incredible that 95% of consumers have to put up with such a buggy program. I have already downloaded Open Office and am considering switching over if I didn't think it would cost me ages.

bless you for this tip!i have been trying to avoid the dreaded automatic line by not using hypens, underscores, etc in my docs to separate sections - only to find it also does the same thing with "equal" signs.

Seriously, has't Microsoft not received enough complaints about that "stupid, annoying horizontal line" (the words I used in google to get this page) to have a user-friendly means of getting rid of it e.g. highlight and delete. You've made yet another fan.... thank you.

I have this problem where the black line just moves upward each time I try to do as you've suggested... I click the "no border" thing and have tried highlighting the line in different ways with different amounts of text around it, but it just jumps somewhere else in the document! Woe is me!!

oh my freaking god. HALLE-FREAKING-LUJAH! that thing is so annoying! I was like "Alright, Microsoft Word. You're amazing, but if you do this to me one more time..." and now I get it! YAY! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

I won't in any way be able to add a new kind of thank you to this post, but I just wanted to write anyway and say that THE LINE HAS BEEN BUGGING ME FOR YEARS... I used to cut and paste the entire document above and below the line into a NEW document, and even re-type stuff. You'd think you were in the clear for a few essays, and then BAM, it's back. What I love most about this thread however, is the affiliation I feel with other post-ers in their despair anger and relief - keep the colourful language (e.g. 'rip my face off') coming! In rageful fits of companionship friends... Bree.

I just had a similar problem in Word 2007, but it was in the Header. A mysterious horizontal line that I had not added and would not go away. It was not a typical border, however, because simply turning off borders did not work. It was a PAGE BORDER, on the second tab of the Borders and Shading dialog box.

I seriously thought I was going to run screaming from the building tonight if it would not disappear...

Hey, thanks for the Word 2007 tip - the mysterious, annoying line had to appear there too! I'm sure someone round here will find this useful, once they've finished (or is it started?) ranting about how much they hate Word 2007!

My problem turned out to be a bit different -- the random lines were actually "autoshapes"; but until I purchased CrossEyes (after market Word Editor that gives WordPerfect-like "Reveal Codes"), I couldn't figure it out at all. Now when I click the [Autoshape] code in CrossEyes, it gives me a handle to allow me to get rid of the line. Short of that, I was going stark raving mad. CrossEyes isn't quite as sweet as RevealCodes, where you can delete the offending item simply by deleting its "revealed" code. Instead, once the code is revealed, you have to go back to the text and then delete the offending shape/font/line/art; but it's a whole lot better than nothing.

haha this is classic how many peeps have commented! i've had like 4 lines invading my doc...faaaark i was definitely starting to actually swear at my pc and that has never happened before! LEGEND=markowe :)

I think I love you. THANK YOU! You just saved me from going completely mad from the wrath and frustration and my computer from flying out the window. (I know it is not my laptop's fault - but it would have been a quick and easy fix.)

OMFG THANK YOU. Words cannot describe the agony that evil line has put me through. It was wandering wherever it pleased, multiplying freely, resisting all efforts to delete, and basically driving me insane. You saved my life.

This is hilarious- all these people suffering with me. I was about to pull my hair about over a stupid line!!!!!! The tip about putting your cursor just above it was very helpful as my line kept moving!

It was messing with me, man. Was messing with me real bad. Was bordering on desperation and contemplating rewriting/innovatively copypasting the entire document to escape the menace. You are my knight in shining armour. <3

If you've pressed Enter several times trying to get rid of the line, you will merely have applied the border formatting to all the paragraphs you added, as well as to the original one. This won't be obvious, because when several consecutive paragraphs have the same “Bottom Border” formatting applied to them, the border only appears below the last of them (Word takes “bottom” literally). So If you then remove the border formatting from the paragraph that has the line below it, the line will move up one paragraph. The trick is to select all the affected paragraphs and either press Ctrl+Q or choose No Border.

I found a bunch of these posts and none of the helped me because it was not a paragraph border, not a header or footer border, but a PAGE BORDER as ANONYMOUS posted back in march! i almost started crying when i saw how happy everyone was that these posts fixed their issue and not mine.

not working. i mean, i don`t understand what is a bloc around that line. in word 2007 i just can`t get rid of that line. i rather create new document and paste the content of previous and than after of that line.

I love you. You saved me having a breakdown. I need to hand my Psychology report in tomorrow and was considering putting one on every page so it looked like I meant it.. In Word 2007 you have to click above the line and then do the 'no borders', for some reason if you highlight it then it just appears above the highlight. Evading git.Thank you.

Is there one person on earth that wants its underscores converted to a THICK PARAGRAPH BORDER? It must be some kind of hidden camera joke from a developer looking at us trying all sorts of right clicking, backspacing, multiline selections, copy, pasting... Thank you for the tip!

Thank you so much! I was fighting with those stupid lines for 25 min and that was enough to drive me crazy...then i took a breath and remembered "Google is my friend, use it"And your blog was the first result I found 5 seconds later, problem solved! You are the MAN!

I found this line in my header too. And markowe, it isn't because of the dashes. The line created by dashes can be deleted by simple backspacing (i do that). Thank you so much! I was thinking no one would notice or have an entire post about this thing ... thank you so much!

Great :) I think the comment about the dashes was a reference to when you type a few dashes (or underscores) in a row and press ENTER, Word thinks you want a line for some reason and coverts it to one, but yes, those CAN be deleted, though they are indistinguishable from the "border" type we are talking about here.

If your using Word 2007 its not so easy as 'uncheck border'; I found out the 'hard way'. Make sure you are in Draft View. From Advanced Settings in Word Options, select display and change 'Style Pane' from 0 cm to, say, 1.6 cm.Now go to the bit of the document where the line is, click in the 'Style Pane' and change it to 'Normal' - line gone - job done!

OH MY HEAVENS!!! You are a gray-hair saver, and you made me a hero at work!!! THANKS SO MUCH!

I actually use the lines a lot, but never knew how to get rid of them. In case you are wondering, you get them by keying a series of three characters in a row and pressing Enter. For example three ~~~ will give you a squiggly line.

Didn't work for me at first, I was highlighting the line and it just kept moving the line up. Finally I put the cursor above the line w/o highlighting anything and then it worked.Thank you sooooooo much I am working on a very important document!

Thank you! I do sometimes intentionally insert this horizontal line into my Word docs. However, whenever I cut and paste text (which is often), this line likes to come along for the ride. It seriously starts to replicate itself through my document. I had about 4-5 of these errant lines in the document I'm currently working on that I just cleared using your tip.

p.s. to anyone who cant get this to work. try pressing crtl+a to select the whole document then press the no border button. Gets rid of all them at once and it solves problems of not selecting it correctly.

@Ryan - Office gets us all sooner or later :) That's what Google is for! Thanks for the tip!

@Elliot - 'pay', that's a good one :) Just a little hobby blog, I am afraid, no pay involved, except some measly advertising revenue! Maybe I should set up a 'Donate' button, ha ha. Really though, always glad to have helped someone.

just want to let everyone know tha tI tried all of the suggestions listed. My problem was a half line at the bottom of the page. It was not a border, header or footer issue. I tried deleting the entire page, selecting the entire document, etc. the problem started when I copied and pasted a section from another document that had a foot note in it. this section had a statement with the little number 1 by it so that you would look toward the bottom of the oage for further explanation. Where I copied this section to, the footnote was not where I thought it should be so I deleted it. the text was removed but the line remained. When I moved my cursor over the line four little lines appread by the cursor. Right click and then edit the foot note.

WOAH! Do you and Microsoft have an agreement or something?! They create a problem and then you solve it and get a blog that has comments starting four years ago this month! Hehehe, just kidding ... Seriously, what kinda logic did they use to decide that turning a bunch of dashes into a line was best accomplished by a border, I will never know. It used to drive me wild, everything that everybody did here, to the extent that I used to finally end up copying and pasting all but the last line into a new document and then manually typing the last line! I never once imagined it was a BORDER! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Marry me? THANKYOU SO MUCH.You have no idea how much this was doing my head in for a school assignment - I got so fed up that I typed in: "HOW DO I GET RID OF THAT STUPID ANNOYING LINE IN WORD" into google thinking it wouldn't work, and this came up.You deserve all the awards - FOUR FOR YOU, GLEN COCO.